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Jamais Cascio

Jamais Cascio Books

Author

Jamais Cascio, born in 1966, is an influential writer and thinker in the fields of technology, futurism, and sustainability. His work explores how technological progress affects society, economy, and the environment, and how innovation and change can address future challenges.

Hacking the Earth

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“Participatory complexity may well be the key descriptor of the 21st century - in our economies, in our politics, and in our everyday lives.”

Wells May Economy Century Keys Everyday Complexity Everyday Life 21st Century

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Preventing global warming from becoming a planetary catastrophe may take something even more drastic than renewable energy, superefficient urban design, and global carbon taxes.”

May Energy Design Becoming Taxes Global Warming Urban Carbon Catastrophe Preventing Renewable Energy Drastic Urban Design Carbon Tax

Book:Hacking the Earth

Source: Hacking the Earth

“It's a pretty widely-accepted notion that the atmosphere is a ridiculously complex system, and the best we can do with our models is a rough approximation.”

Can Do Models Complexes Notion Accepted Atmosphere Rough Approximation Complex Systems

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Fluid intelligence doesn't look much like the capacity to memorise and recite facts, the skills that people have traditionally associated with brainpower.”

People Looks Facts Skills Capacity Fluid

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Blended-reality technology could play in a limited, walled-garden world, but history suggests that it won't really take off until it offers broad freedom of use.”

World Play Use Reality Technology Offers Garden Broads

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Greed, accident, or malice may have harmful results, but, barring something truly apocalyptic, a resilient system can absorb such results without its overall health being threatened.”

May Results Greed Accidents Threatened Malice Resilient Apocalyptic Overall Health

Author:Jamais Cascio

“The highest compliment I can give a science fiction book is that it's 'plausibly surreal' - it manages to feel like a relentless extrapolation from today even as it overwhelms with unexpected consequences of that extrapolation.”

Giving Feels I Can Book Today Fiction Highest Consequence Science Fiction Manage Unexpected Compliment Surreal Relentless

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Sustainability is a seemingly laudable goal - it tells us we need to live within our means, whether economic, ecological, or political - but it's insufficient for uncertain times. How can we live within our means when those very means can change, swiftly and unexpectedly, beneath us?”

Needs Mean Political Goal Economic Sustainability Uncertain Ecological Insufficient Very Mean Uncertain Times

Author:Jamais Cascio

“The biggest potential and actual crises of the 21st century all have a strong, long, slow aspect with a significant lag between cause and effect. We have to train ourselves to be thinking in terms of longer-term results.”

Thinking Long Strong Causes Term Results Effects Century Aspect Crisis Train Significant 21st Century Cause And Effect Lag

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Computer programmers, biotechnologists, environmental scientists, neuroscientists, nanotech engineers - all of these fields, and more, should have at least a course in ethics as part of their degree requirements.”

Should Courses Fields Degrees Computer Ethics Should Have Scientist Environmental Engineers Requirements Programmers Computer Programmers

Author:Jamais Cascio

“To be clear, geoengineering won't solve global warming. It's not a 'techno-fix.' It would be enormously risky and almost certainly lead to troubling unforeseen consequences.”

Would Be Clear Consequence Solve Global Warming Unforeseen Techno Geoengineering

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Many futurists use a checklist approach to make sure they're covering a sufficiently wide set of topics in terms of both research and brainstorming during a foresight exercise.”

Use Term Exercise Approach Research Wide Topics Covering Foresight Brainstorming Futurist Checklists

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Futurism is almost like a vaccination. You inject a little bit of a denatured pathogen to prepare your body in case you encounter it for real.”

Littles Real Body Bits Cases Little Bit Your Body Encounters Vaccinations Futurism Pathogens

Author:Jamais Cascio

“The reality is that de-carbonisation is not happening fast enough.”

Enough Reality Happenings

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Most of us who work as professional futurists never really stop gathering information - you never know when a provocative, potentially disruptive new development might appear.”

Knows Might Information Development Gathering Provocative Disruptive Futurist Gathering Information

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Foresight turns out to be a critical adaptive strategy for times of great stress.”

Turns Stress Strategy Critical Foresight Adaptive

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Cloud computing offers individuals access to data and applications from nearly any point of access to the Internet, offers businesses a whole new way to cut costs for technical infrastructure, and offers big computer companies a potentially giant market for hardware and services.”

Way Whole Bigs Individual Company Cutting Internet Cost Offers Computer Clouds Access Data Giants Application New Ways Infrastructure Computing Hardware Cloud Computing

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Human civilization has been changing the Earths environment for millennia, often to our detriment. Dams, deforestation and urbanization can alter water cycles and wind patterns, occasionally triggering droughts or even creating deserts.”

Humans Has Beens Earth Water Environment Wind Civilization Creating Patterns Desert Cycles Drought Dams Deforestation Human Civilization Urbanization

Author:Jamais Cascio

“In a Photoshopped world, only the skeptical eye prevails.”

World Eye Skeptical

Author:Jamais Cascio

“A good scenario doesn't make a good science fiction story - but it's a setting within which a good science fiction story might be told.”

Stories Might Fiction Science Fiction Setting Settings Scenarios Good Science Fiction Stories

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Everything we think about regarding sustainability - from energy to agriculture to manufacturing to population - has a water footprint. Almost all of the water on Earth is salt water, and the remaining freshwater supplies are split between agricultural use and human use - as well as maintaining the existing natural environment.”

“Trying to do what your competitors are doing but basically a little bit better is probably not going to be the winning strategy. The problem is finding what your competitors wouldnt even consider doing.”

Trying Littles Problem Winning Bits Findings Little Bit Strategy Competitors

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Even if we were to stop putting out greenhouse gases right now, we'd still face decades of warming.”

Ifs Stills Faces Right Now Decades Greenhouses Greenhouse Gases

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Futures thinking is hard work. Fortunately, you do get better at it with practice. It's worth the effort.”

Thinking Hard Effort Practice Hard Work Get Better

Author:Jamais Cascio

“As useful as websites and journals are, there's real value in books, too.”

Book Real Values Journal Website Real Value

Author:Jamais Cascio

“I have to admit it: I'm not a huge fan of the cloud computing concept.”

Fans Huge Concepts Clouds Computing Cloud Computing

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Don't expect to be able to upload your cat's brain into your Roomba any time soon.”

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Being connected to the Internet means being vulnerable to coordinated actions that can knock down walls of secrecy and shatter mechanisms of control.”

Mean Action Wall Internet Connected Vulnerable Mechanism Secrecy

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Crackdowns on Internet content make clear the need for an anonymized Web. Now, someone just needs to implement it.”

Needs Clear Internet

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Future forecasting is all about testing strategies - it's like a wind tunnel.”

Wind Strategy Testing Tunnels Forecasting

Author:Jamais Cascio

“The difference between e-mail and regular mail is that computers handle e-mail, and computers never decide to come to work one day and shoot all the other computers.”

Differences Work Technology One Day Computer Handle Mail

Author:Jamais Cascio

“The idea of sustainability can imply there is one perfect, unchanging future, if only we could work out how to get there. Resilience might be more useful, in that it assumes a dynamic environment and that perfection is impossible. You need to design systems to accommodate failure rather than eliminate it. By trying to be perfect, many visions of sustainability are quite brittle”

“As our various electronic devices gain more and more sensory awareness, we open up the potential for entirely new forms of interaction. Not just new interfaces - tapping and shaking and whatnot - but a shift in presence.”

Form Awareness Gains Various Devices Interaction Shaking Sensory Interfaces Tapping Electronic Devices

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Is there a better example of natural selection in action than 'Project Runway?'”

Action Natural Example Projects Selection Natural Selection Runway Project Runway

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Nature stopped being natural decades ago.”

Natural Decades Being Natural

Author:Jamais Cascio

“My own suspicion is that a stand-alone artificial mind will be more a tool of narrow utility than something especially apocalyptic.”

Mind My Own Tools Artificial Suspicion Utility Apocalyptic Stand Alone

Author:Jamais Cascio

“It's remarkably easy to dig up enormous amounts of information about individuals, without their consent.”

Individual Easy Information Amount Enormous Consent

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Nearly every communication method we invent eventually conveys unwanted commercial messages.”

Communication Messages Method Unwanted

Author:Jamais Cascio

“But here's the ugly truth: nature doesn't care about democracy, or who's right, or what's fair. And because of the slow-change aspect of climate, we can't wait until the worst effects are upon us to make a decision -- by then, it would be far, far too late. The scenario we may be faced with is one where doing something for the wrong reasons, run by the wrong people, may still save more lives than holding out for a more appealing option.”

People May Stills Reason Would Be Care Running Waiting Decision Democracy Worst Effects Late Fairs Aspect Climate Ugly Too Late Scenarios Wrong Reasons Ugly Truth

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive.”

Able Goal Survival Overcoming Resilience Unexpected Thrive Sustainability

Author:Jamais Cascio

“By ignoring tomorrow, we undermine today.”

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Intelligence augmentation decreases the need for specialization and increases participatory complexity.”

Needs Increase Complexity Decrease Specialization

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Nobody's going to fix the world for us, but working together, making use of technological innovations and human communities alike, we might just be able to fix it ourselves.”

World Humans Use Might Able Together Community Innovation Working Together Technological

Author:Jamais Cascio

“Many of the cognitive enhancement drugs serve to increase focus and concentration. But 'letting your mind wander' is very often an important part of the creative process.”

Mind Important Process Creative Focus Drug Increase Wander Concentration Creative Process Cognitive Enhancement Focus And Concentration

Author:Jamais Cascio

“When we developed written language, we significantly increased our functional memory and our ability to share insights and knowledge across time and space. The same thing happened with the invention of the printing press, the telegraph, and the radio.”

Language Memories Ability Space Written Happened Share Presses Radio Insight Things Happen Invention Time And Space Printing Printing Press Telegraph Written Language

Author:Jamais Cascio

About the Author

Born: 1966
Known for: Author
Quotes: 45

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